the intersection of sports, economics, management, and strategy

NFL Draft Value and the Blaine Gabbert Trade

On April 28th, 2011, the Jacksonville Jaguars traded two draft picks–the 16th and 49th overall–to the Washington D.C. Football Team and moved up six spots in the first round to select quarterback Blaine Gabbert tenth overall. Using Kevin Meers’ (president of the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective) draft pick approximate value, did this look like a good trade at the time? No.

Using Meer’s valuation, you can see this never looked like a good deal for the Jaguars. On average the tenth overall pick is 39.9 (units1) more than the 16th pick, or 15 percent better. In giving up their second round, 49th overall pick worth 148.4, the Jaguars seemingly overpaid substantially. The difference between how much moving up was worth and what Jacksonville actually gave up–110 units–is worth the 82nd overall pick, in the middle of the third round. The trade would have been reasonable for a top-three pick; but, even just seven spots later down at tenth, the numbers indicate it was a bad idea.

The numbers do not tell everything. Meers’ valuation does not reveal that Gabbert was rushed into starting prematurely after presumed starting quarterback David Gerrard bizarrely left football, or that he played behind a below-average offensive line in each of his three seasons, including the third-worst league-wide his second year (per Pro Football Focus). These factors cannot be forgot. But after three years of awful play from Gabbert, yesterday the Jaguars traded him to the San Francisco 49ers, for the current fourth-to-last pick of the sixth round, worth about 45 points in Meers’ system.2 Ironic how that is the sort of pick the Jaguars should have traded to move up in the first place.

The good news for Jaguars fans is that it is over. Well, almost, as Gabbert will still count $1.807 million against Jacksonville’s salary cap this season in dead money. The good news for 49ers fans is that we have obtained a 24-year-old backup quarterback, whom our organization once thought highly of (and still somewhat does, apparently), for a very late draft pick unlikely to contribute to our current roster, and the well-documented quarterback whisperer Jim Harbaugh is still our head coach. (Yup, gotta’ save the best for last.)

These particular numbers do not mean anything outside the chart; they are used to rank picks in a simple way. They are derived from real numbers, the career approximate value figures of Pro Football Reference. ↩

The 49ers gave up the current fourth-to-last pick of the sixth round for Gabbert. That pick will not be 189th overall, as the league has a handful of compensatory selections to award between some of the rounds, but it should be close. ↩